Children: Impact of International Conflict

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for securing this important debate. I note that we have a number of recent former Ministers speaking today, including the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, and the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, who are still very much committed to the defence of children; they are not walking away.

It is vital that the UN and Save the Children publish these terrible reports. The UN has defined ways in which children come to harm in war, terming these the six grave violations. They include killing and maiming; recruitment as child soldiers; and sexual violence, which is clearly increasingly being used as a weapon of war, as the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, noted. Save the Children reported that almost 500 million children—or one in six—were living in a conflict zone in 2022. Africa was the continent with the highest number of conflict-affected children, whereas the Middle East had the highest proportion of children living in conflict zones.

Last year, the previous Government committed in their White Paper to a new strategy on children in conflict. The new Government have pledged to continue this, as the noble Lord, Lord Browne, noted. The latest Save the Children report predates much of what has been happening in Gaza and Sudan recently but it also reports that, since the latest military escalation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel, the scale of crimes and grave violations against children has been appalling; the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, and others noted this. In 2023, there were 136 grave violations against Israeli children and almost 8,000 against Palestinian children. As we know, many children have been killed and maimed. There have been hundreds of attacks on hospitals and schools—not least yesterday’s, condemned by the UN Secretary-General—as well as the denial of humanitarian access to protection, health, food and shelter. Thousands of children are missing, presumed dead under the rubble or at heightened risk of disease.

There will be a debate on Sudan tomorrow in the Lords. Save the Children notes that Sudan has the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world. Those who attended the briefing with the Minister yesterday were deeply shocked.

Then there is Ukraine. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, noted, children have been killed and maimed, abducted into Russia and subjected to the social disruption of their families; men have been left in Ukraine while other relatives are displaced, destroying the society. These are bleak and terrible stories, and we have heard others this afternoon. We all wish the Government well as they seek to address these issues through their aid programmes, through their engagement internationally and by making sure that the UK respects international law without fear or favour.